Weekly Beer Review: The Bruery's Autumn Maple

Brewery: The Bruery, Placenta CA
Beer: Autumn Maple (Seasonal)


Overall, this beer is really good if you enjoy Belgian style ales (not hoppy, decidedly sweet). As it says on the label, there are distinct spices that you can taste: maple and molasses being the most predominant. Maybe the yam flavor is missing, but I can't really say that I would want a lot of yam flavor in a beer! Has a good, amber color and smell. I really liked it, and its great for winter weather when you're craving something stronger in a beer. Would be great to share between two or more people, since its a 750 mL bottle and 10% ABV. Overall, A-. 
$10.99 @ Whole Foods, LA

all the photos i havent added

Corsica!

After my time in the largest city in France, arriving in Corsica was somewhat unexpected and refreshing. I landed at the Ajaccio airport, which is really tiny and my plane was mostly made up of locals, as it seemed. After waiting for my bags to arrive, I took the bus to the city center. But before the bus could leave, however, the driver-lady (wearing almost high-heel boots and scarf, no less) had to have her cigarette and so did a few of the other passengers. This should have given me and early warning about the pace in Corsica, which is unapologetically slow.


Jacky's apartment belongs to an older divorcee from Paris, which is very cute, small, and looks out on an extremely corsican view: into other apartments with lots of hanging laundry. Corsica overall looks a lot like Southern California. There are lots of oak trees, olive trees and shrubby plants. There are also a ton of fig trees, which is very good for people like jacky and I, that can't get enough of them and get looks from the locals while scouting out good ones.


Since it is a holiday week in Corsica, called "Toussaints" or "All Saints" day, which is Monday, Jacky and another "assistant" at the Corsican school were amazing enough to arrange a 5 day hike across Corsica. We met up at with another assistant, Sara, at her apartment in Porto Vecchio, which is closer to the trailhead. The trail that we chose to do was the "Mare a Mare Sud" which is a pretty popular one, but mostly during the summer. Now that it is towards the end of the season for hiking, we had to make sure that all the "gites", or small hostel/hotels were open. The Mare a Mare Sud winds from gite to gite with about 5 to 6 hours of walking in between each day. Once at the gite, the four of us girls were given a dorm/hostel room, and then immediately after we would shower off all the dirt and then usually compare how smelly our clothes were. Then dinner was served family style to all the hikers at the gite, usually around 7:30 (all the gites seemed to agree on this point, for some reason). Some of the dinners were amazing, like Corsican ricotta stuffed eggplant, chevre pop-overs, and local salads. Two of us being vegetarian, it was never a problem, except one time we did have to enjoy a main course of plain buttered pasta...but usually the gite owners were more than happy to accommodate us, and we never went hungry (or thirsty, there was always plenty of Corsican table wine).

Each day's hike was very interesting in its own right. Some days, there were many steep, winding uphill trails that really challenged our athletic ability ("well I thought I was in shape!"). There were also times that challenged our determination, as on the third day it decided to rain on us for the last two hours of the hike, on the longest walking day of the trail. Arriving at the gite that night, we all looked something of a mess! But luckily that gite owner had an inviting fire going for all the hikers to dry their socks and boots, and also served some amazing broth-y vegetable soup before dinner to warm us all up. Other days, we saw a dead wild pig's head, severed cow's foot, a cow that followed us down a path, walnut trees, and about a million chestnuts (I will never buy them again, they're basically carpet in corsica).


Hiking in Corsica is definitely something that I would recommend, as you get to see some really interesting towns and a slice of Corsican life that you would miss out on if you just stuck to the bigger cities. You also get to experience some really corsican and delicious food. My favorite is a type of cheese here called "tomme". A few gites would serve it with dried fig or locally made fig-compote after the meal. Somehow, now matter how much we had eaten for dinner we were always ready to have more cheese (and bread). There are also many locally made aperitifs and liquors, which include corsican flavors such as chestnut, myrrh, and ambrose. When we asked what ambrose is at the farmer's market, the corsican liquor salesman replied, "well its a fruit, thats from here" (in french), which seems to happen a lot in Corsica. Things are just very traditional, and you don't really ask why. Another tradition in Corsica is that everything closes at lunchtime, even sometimes the cafes that sell lunch. Maybe its my American capitalist attitude, but I just keep thinking how someone could make a lot of money in Corsica with a grocery shop that is open between 12:30 and 3:30pm...

trier and Paris

The last few days working in Obermmel at the Orea vineyards were quite, quite busy. Every day I woke up at 6:15 am so that I could "plunge" the grapes. This consists of taking a large upside-down metal bowl on a stainless steel handle and pressing down on the grapes in large 1000 L tubs, so that the "cap" becomes coated with juice and does not dry out. This is only for red wine grapes, and could quite possibly be done with the feet, depending on the ferment, a la I Love Lucy. However, for practical reasons this is usually not the case. Also, some of the grapes dye your hands red, so I can only imagine what your feet would look like. Then, after plunging, I did tests on each ferment, which included finding the specific gravity, done with a hydrometer, as well as testing the temperature. As the red wine ferments, its specific gravity goes down, while the temperature increases. Don't ask me to explain why this is scientifically, it just is. There were six ferments to do, which usually took about an hour.

Then, after that, Herve and the other WWOOF'ers and I would get together the things that we needed for harvesting. This includes about a bunch of boxes that have pretty much specifically designed for grape picking. Then, at 8am we would all get in the car with boxes in tow and make our way to the vineyard. Many of the vineyards in Germany are steep (the steepest is a 68% gradient), which is actually a good thing when you have to drag a box down each row full of grapes. On the other hand, this is problematic for ones lower legs, as you usually rest the box of grapes on your shin so that it does not go sliding down the mountain and ruin all your work. I think I would take a photo of all my bruises I have collected over the month, but no one really wants to see that.

But don't worry, it wasn't all picking and bruises. There were many breaks which included wine and "breakfast beer" which I had made weeks earlier. Having lunch in the vineyard was always really beautiful because of the great views in the Saar region. The only bad thing about having lunch in the vineyard were the wasps. Its really unclear why, but Germany has so many wasps. I think I saw one bee the whole time I was there, and everyone knows that wasps are the more evil versions of bees. Therefore at lunch, it so happened that several times some one would get stung, as a matter of course. Luckily, I was never one of those people, probably due to my lack of eating meat (not a scientifically based statement).

After lunch, it was back to work, usually packing up boxes or dragging them down hills, as well as some more picking if it was not all done before lunch. This could be an easy or hard process, usually dependent on how much alcohol was consumed during lunch (This probably lead to all the bruises?) After the trailer was packed up with a tarp, etc (in Germany, even if it is a five minute drive you must make your trailer look like it could survive a hurricane without loosing a grape) we would go back to the cellar and process the grapes. If they were white wine grapes, this means that they get put in a presser and then the juice if pumped into a tank to ferment. If they are red wine grapes, the stems are taken off with a machine and then put into 1000L tubs to ferment. Then everything must be cleaned, and at 7pm the red wine must be plunged again.

However, since I took the early plunge duty, I usually went back to the house to work on dinner for all of us. Most people that know me know I love to cook, but Germany and I did not get along on the subject of food. Luckily, Herve was from France and at least knew that German food was terrible so we had probably the best stocked kitchen in Oberemmel. However, I feel that now i am a fairly decent flammenkuchen chef, so when I get back to the states I bet that will be the next big thing in LA (just saying).

The last full day in Germany, the three of us WWOOF'ers decided to go to Trier, which is the closest city to Oberemmel that is big enough to have an H & M, if you understand. Luckily for Mahanya and I, they also sell dirndls in Trier, which are German dresses that people wear to Oktoberfest. And since Oktoberfest was already over, this meant they were all on sale. I picked up a fetching red and white one (that my mom says I should wear to Thanksgiving dinner...?) and Mahanya got a brown and pink one, which is also a common dirndl color scheme. Trier also included a visit to Cafe Asterix, which my Lonely Planet guide book said we must visit while in Trier. Of course, it was nothing impressive, although I was so amazed that they had a tequila sunrise on their menu that I had to order it. We ended up being much happier with the traditional German wine stand in the middle of the main square in Trier, which included a bottle of sparkling wine produced in the region which we ordered (as well as more wasps).

However, in life all good things must end, so therefore the next day I left Oberemmel for Paris. But, as the fates would have it, I left my iPhone and some clothes at the house (also due to mimosas at breakfast?), which could be mailed to somewhere where i will be staying in the future. However, not trusting the Corsican postal service (where I will be headed next), as well as already missing my life in Oberemmel, I decided that I will just have to get my stuff in person.

The train to Paris was uneventful and I was able to amuse some Asian tourists by constantly nodding off every five seconds. I found the Ines' apartment successfully as well, for which I credit my improving skills at navigating subways, as well as her good directions. The next day, I tried to tackle as much as I possibly could of things that one "must see" in France, like the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc De Triomphe. To be honest, the Mona Lisa at the Louvre was overrated. Overrated, as far as you can barely see it. Not being the pushy type, as well as wanting to see other things, I got as close as about 15 feet away before I was overwhelmed by all the tourists and moved on to some other paintings that I really liked seeing, such as the Wreck/Raft of The Medusa, which anyone who was in Art History at Cleveland will remember well. Also its huge and you don't have to fight to see it. There were also a million other great works that I loved seeing, but after 4 hours I saw how pretty it was outside and really wanted to go see le Jardin des Tuileries and enjoy some fresh air. Of course, being the food-centric person that I am, I was just happened to stumble upon two macaron shops that I had really wanted to go to, as well as a fancy food store where I bought a very delicious goat cheese and tomato tart-like pastry as well as a baguette (duh, its paris). After a very long day of walking around, I made my way to the rue des champs elysees, where I was very excited to find a sephora, since I had run out of makeup three weeks ago, and was disappointed to find the Germany does not really sell any (fact based on science). After stocking up, I hit a few more stores, still excited due to the fact that I had not been shopping in so long. However, after a full day of walking around, I decided to  head back to the apartment, but not before stopping to buy some cheese to go with that baguette (once again, when in paris...).

More photos to be added when I recover said iPhone!

Saarburg

Now that I have been in Germany for 20 days, I feel that I can make some assesments about Germans, and German culture, little of it that I know.

First, outiside of a major city, there is nearly nothing open on a Sunday (monday is a crap shoot too). When it is a bigger city, there are restaurants/cafes open, but no bars, and certainly no apotekes, which is like a pharmacy. And of course, the day I usually want to buy something from a pharmacy, it is a Sunday. Also, pharmacies here are not like the ones in the US. They don't sell chips, and wine, and really cheap shoes as well as hair products and Tums and actual medicines. So there you go. I think I could make big money in Germany opening a 24 Rite Aid.

Two, "paprika" is pepper flavored. There are "paprika" flavored chips and stuff, and I kept trying to figure out why the Germans were so obsessed with this one spice. They also don't have weird flavors of Lays here, like in the UK and Greece. They have paprika flavored pringles. So I think that will be my second line of business in Germany.

Third: If Germans are going to do something, no matter in how amateur a fashion, they are going to buy all the f-ing professional equipment they can. This leads to the German hobby of: Nordic Walking. This means, you are over 55, you go "hiking" and you have your two ski poles with you. Well, two high-tech walking sticks. And you will use those two damn sticks no matter how flat the ground is. I also think that German  hiking is pretty tame, also, because everything is labeled. Its not like in the US or other places, where you go "Well I think this trail loops back around..."only to find yourself backtracking at 7 o clock at night. Germans label every single road, track, pig path, etc. There must be a national sale of signs. This tendancy of high professionalism in ameteur sports leads to a big problem with the second largest German hobby: biking. The problem is, in the US, if one wears those bike clothes for "real" cyclists, you  usually are, you know, a real  cyclist. More to the point is, you are on the thinner side, cause you bike so much. In Germany though, the unwritten rule does not exist. Every large, beer-bellied German man who has a bike wears his skin-tight clothes on the bike in every color of the rainbow. This leads to much giggling whilst hiking.

Four: Misc: you can only shoot an animal while sitting down. black beans must be special ordered from the store. eggplant = aubergine. germans love sparkling water. no window screens. dryers are uncommon.

Saarburg

these are walnuts and hazelnuts we foraged

This weekend we came home from the other vineyard we have been working at, in Rech. The Rech vineyard belongs to the friend of Herve. Its a really nice place, and we basically live in a winebar. The problem there though, is that they only serve bread and cold cuts and stuff. Oh, and flammenkuchen. So thats just kinda like pizza. So by the time we got home on Saturday, we all really, really wanted veggies. The only vegetable I has seen was tomato. Maybe there was some leek on one of the flammenkuchen. I had fried eggs on toast for three nights in a row. Don't forget the health layer of butter on that toast, thank you. So for lunch on Saturday back in Oberemmel, we had a vegetable feast.

gondola thing

The next day, Derek (the other WWOOFer here now) and I decided to do the 12 km trek to Saarburg. Saarburg is a big tourist place, but they dont have any metion of it in my lonely planet guide, so it must be not that cool in the big scheme of Germany. They hike was super flat the whole way, and mostly on a bike path, so we got "ding-ding" from a lot of bikes the whole way that thought we were going to somehow veer into the very wide bike path. In Saarburg, we decided that doing the most touristy things would probably be the best. So after wine at one of the cafes, we paid three Euro to go in a gondola thing to the top of the mountain. This was basically a chair lift, which had very impressive views of the grass directly below, and (!) in front of us. And the road below, full of BMW's. At the top, there was a cafe and many, many children. In a touristy mood, we naturally decided to ride on the bobsled ride that was also at the top. So, for only a couple more euro, we were able to see how German children are educated on driving. In Germany, it is only natural that a ride would have real, actual, accurate road signs and a speed limit (you can have fun, but not too much!)

After a hike back down the mountain, and some more wine at a cafe (where we met some floridians, who asked, since I am from LA, if I had a reality show. I said yes), we were thankfully picked up by herve. having not eaten anything for lunch, except for a banana, we were naturally fairly starving and the wine definitly got to us faster than usual (well that's a way to save money!) For dinner we made some gourmet flammenkuchen with green onions, creme, and salmon lox (here it is called lochs). I would have taken photos, but we were too hungry. The beer to the left here is from a local brewery. Its not too strong of flavor but it has grown on me.

Also, since today is "Unification Day" in Germany, it was only natural that we should have a BBQ. We went to one of the vineyards and it was amazingly beautiful, with nice afternoon sunlight. I made a salad for everyone, and our German/Polish neighbour was very suprised by my creation. I told her it was "very california": lettuce, pear, mozza, and hazlenuts with a light vinegar dressing. I don't think anyone at home would have been suprised by it, but I guess in Germany putting fruit in your salad is really crazy (those americans...)

everyday life

These are some photos of daily life in Oberemmel. We discovered a game at the local bar called "hammer and nails". This is the game: nail a nail with the claw end of a hammer, into a stump. Yes, real tree stump, in a bar. I asked Herve, our winemaker, homeowner, guide, etc, if we WWOOF'ers could have a stump and some nails so that we could all become really good and "hammer und nails" and then win all the games at the bar. Cause its certainly easier to practice that than foosbal.

This is some cake that Bridget gave us today as snack in Oberemmel. 

our sign

this is not ketchup

A NOTE ABOUT KETCHUP: in Germany, ketchup is not ketchup, is not ketchup. This is a classic example. Sometimes, at restaurants, Germans do not think of the difference between curry ketchup and reg ketchup. This is shown in this photo from the grocery store here. Here are some more ketchups:

Also, salsa here is called "mexico sauce". Yeah...

Herve special ordered for me some "black beans" so I could make mexican food for dinner next week, after I come home from Munchen. This is the conversation:

"I need black beans and cumin, and corn and smallish tortillas of course" (to make enchiladas)

"So the beans. They are totally black?"

"yeah...?"

"I have never seen those. We have cumin."

"Well, I guess I could use kidney beans...I mean, people in CA would kill themselves before using kidney beans. We hate those."

"So they are not peas, like black-eyed peas?'

"no, not at all'

"okay, I see what i can do. And these tortillas? Not like hard tacos?"

"No..no not at all. Maybe i just make "AMERICAN NACHOS?"

"NO no, i ask at the markt"

Because its silly, but I would like them to try some better mexican ish food. They don't believe me that much that TEX-MEX is not MEXICAN food. Not even that one is more "authentic" just that they are different. I guess that would be like here, telling me the German food is different from region to region. I would just say, but its all just schtzinel, right?! Just kidding. Its mostly cheese-bread. Running joke in the household. 

hazelnuts in the raw! JUM!

Local beer. Das ist gut. 

Luxembourg and other daily adventures

So on our other day off from work, the first week in Germany, we decided that it was a good time to go to Luxembourg since it is only an hour train ride from Oberemmel, and also because when else would you go to Luxembourg? It's so small. The noteable claims for Luxembourg are that is has the highest GDP per capita, and from a geography project at UCLA I found out that it has the highest meat consumption per capita as well (makes sense). Therefore, this seems like a dumb vacation destination for a vegetarian cheap girl, but the three of us WWOOF'ers thought that it seemed like fun.

After the train ride we arrived in cold, foggy tiny country. After a stop at un cafe, we figured out that between the three of us, knowing German and French got us halfway to Luxembourgish, which sounds kinda like German and French combined. A lot of people spoke French, which was fun for me because it meant I got to practice a little bit.

Our first stop was the Notre Dame cathedral. You can only go into the lower half, which looked just about like any other church. Then we attempted to walk to the World War II memorial, which is about 2km outside of Luxembourg city center. After walking for 45 minutes, we began to doubt our navigation. Or more accurately: I thought we were doing fine, but then Milena, my new buddy from Hong Kong, thought the fact that I 'felt we were doing fine' was not enough, since we were no longer on the portion of the road that appeared on the map that we stole from the Luxembourg Best Western hotel. Therefore, this was resoved when Wen, from Chicago, went up to a car at one of the few stop signs on this busy road we had been walking on. Luckily for us, Luxembourgers are very nice and all drive nice cars and apparently, don't mind chauffering tourists around. So in asking for directions to the WWII memorial, the older luxembourger gentelman said, "Oh I'll just drive you there!" and so we got there 5 minutes later (i had been right, BTW, with my directions I would like to point out here. But not walking was nice...)

The WWII American cemetary and memorial is very impressive. You walk in through big gates and immediatly see a white tower surrounded by grass.

Bonn and Oberemmel (home)

On Friday we went to Bonn, which is the 19th largest city in Germany (thanks wikipedia) and was also the capitol of the west until 1998. Bonn is pretty big, especially compared to the town which we came from, Rech, which is really small (and 80% wine shops?)...

Bonn was about a 50 minute train ride on the DB Bahn train, which is the major train line around here. They are much much nicer than any american train lines I have been on. After we got off the train, I was able to buy a cell phone that you just add money too. Thank God for my new friend here who speaks fluent German! or else I would be doing a lot more pointing and waving and charades to get things around here. 

Bonn's main attraction, or claim to fame as it were, is the Beethoven house. Its where Ludwig lived until he moved to Austria, and then never was able to return to Bonn again. Its a old apartment-type thing with extremely squeaky floors, but it is well worth the student price to get in (always have your bruin card!). You even see his death mask! Ooo.

Milena waits for me to stop taking photos

After that, we had a meal that I can't really compare to anything else I have ever had. I think the words "German Mexican Restaurant" really sum it up. 

 

I think "Quesadilla Caprese" "Mexican Pizza" are the warning signs. Also how is there a taco pizza?...

Veggie "burrito" (read: wrap with beans)

On our way home to Rech, we made a quick pit stop in Oberwinter, which is just a really small town with no particular qualities, except that you can buy champagne in a can, and then watch the Rhine river which flows next to it (guess what we did...) Then it was back to Rech, which was having a little festival/community wine tasting "fete". We sampled a few, and then bought the cheapest bottle (americans!) and then it was time to go back to Oberemmel. 

The next day we worked on the vineyard in Oberemmel, which is home base. The vineyards here are really steep! I was told this was normal, and I said that in California if the land isn't perfectly level, we either make it level (more dramatic) or just let it go and have our normal sage bushes grow all over it (more lazy/normal). So at first this made me a little wary, but it makes for really great views while working! 

First Days

Okay so I was supposed to leave LAX to Dallas/Ft. Worth then Frankfurt, starting at 6 am on Tuesday the 13th. Well, thank you American Airlines, for not telling me you changed my flight that morning to 9:30 at night. The good news was that the flight they changed me to was AA's partner, British airways, who is I think a little bit better than American, and gives you wine with dinner. Who will say no to that? So then it was LAX to Heathrow to Frankfurt. Then from Frankfurt to Wiltingen (Trier) via D Bahn train, which is like the main train around here.

Sleeping only fitfully on the plane from LAX to Heathrow, I arrived in Wiltingen extremely tired. However! It was 5:40 am, which is basically when we were expected to get up anyways for the day. So after Herve, the main vineyard man picked me up at the station, we grabbed the other kids working here, and hit the road. We drove two (sleepy) hours to Rech, which is where a friend of Herve's has several vineyards. After having a quick German breakfast (read: rolls, cheese, some cream-cheese like thing, cold cuts, jam, coffee) we were off to pick grapes. Rech is just about one of the most beautiful places you could pick grapes! It has very pretty sloping countryside and everything is GREEN! Unlike the LA area. Then we had lunch of a slab of meat (ham? I don't pay enough attention, I just avoid it) and some potato mush stuff, with spinach and onions. I ate the mush and  avoided the slab. The read question is, how long can I be here and avoid eating meat? I think it will be a personal challenge, before I turn white and pale from all the bread and potatoes and cheese (non-meat German food).


After lunch, we loaded up the grapes and then "processed" them. This means like sorthing all the grapes from the stems, rinsing, and then mush-ifying them up to juice in another machine. We sampled some of the grape juice while it was mush-ifying (technical wine term) and it was delicious! So I have no doubt it will be good wine.


After the processing, three of us WWOOF'ers went on a hike through Rech, ending in this very interesting castle like place the I think used to be a fort in 1100. It was very high up but had lots of picnic tables. After stopping at "ein biergarten" for some drinks (duh) it was time for dinner back at the vineyard, which was...more cold cuts. I see a patten here. They also gave us a cherry danish, which I ate only out of the nutritional value of the cherries, I swear.

Then we drank some wine while I attempted to understand German TV (even the people who speak german could not comprehend it...). After this soporific pastime, I went to bed at the very late hour of 930 pm because my body told me that I had not been asleep properly in two days. I feared that it would be my ultimate demise to fall asleep and hit my head while showering, which made me take the fastest haven't-showered-in-two-traveling days-shower in the world. How sustainable!